Fall Garden Update

Our fall garden lettuce bed has really taken off in the last few weeks. Here you can see the beautiful lettuce that our family has been enjoying. I planted buttercrucnch, black seeded simpson, and a mescalin salad mix. I think this has been the best tasting lettuce that we have ever grown. The other plus about fall lettuce is that you don't have the bugs that you have in the summer time. I have been thrilled about our fresh fall salads. Next year, I would like to grow an entire bed of just fall lettuce.

Here is our spinach plants. They too are beautiful, and I have been adding fresh spinach to our salads. Our children all love spinach salad so I am planning on trying a spinach salad with a Raspberry Vinegar Dressing sprinkled with some pecans and fresh strawberries (if I can find them).

Here is a picture of our collard greens. Honestly I don't think any of our children eat collards, but Michael and I sure do love them. I will never forget the first time I ate fresh collard greens. It was Thanksgiving, and Michael was in the Navy. He had to work that day and we had no family to celebrate with in the area. We had just moved to Virginia that summer so we didn't have a lot of friends at that point either. Our neighbors' son was also in the Navy and he was serving over seas at the time. That neighbor took us in as if we were family. We addressed them as Pop and MeeMee, just like their grandchildren. I was helping her cook Thanksgiving Dinner, and Pop came in the house with a mound of greens fresh from the garden. I was skeptical, but he was very proud of his collards so I knew I would be trying them at dinner. I did eat them, and they tasted better to me than any thing on that entire table! I wanted to eat the whole bowl, but I knew I couldn't be such a pig. Thankfully for me there weren't many people who ate collard greens at the meal. That family was such a blessing to me and my son during that period of living in Virginia. They shared their family with me which is something I longed for during Michael's Navy time. I felt as if I had a family of my own right across the road, and that truly was a gift sent from the Lord.

We also grew fall peas, but we didn't grow near enough. Those peas were divine. One of our sons who doesn't eat peas said that they were wonderful. He ate 2 huge helpings of those peas. Next year I would like to grow 3 to 4 beds of fresh peas. They were worth the work, and I know that they would be wonderful put up in the freezer for later uses. With the amount of peas we grew this year, we only ended up with 1 meal worth of peas. It takes a lot of peas to make a bowl large enough to feed 7 people!!!

I cannot share pictures of our fall broccoli and cabbage because the plants are just too small. I don't think they will make it, and I am aggravated with myself that I didn't go to the feed store and buy more plants. I knew they looked pitiful when I planted them, but I thought they would grow out of it. I was wrong. That is what Fall Gardening is all about for me this year... taking time to experiment and find out what will work and what won't work. All in all I have been happy with the results thus far!

grace and peace,

julie